This topic was brought up in the HPV vaccine thread, and I wanted to get everybody's opinion on it.

I think that sex before marriage is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it, along with living together, gives couples a chance to see what their marriage might be like. Sex is a huge part of marriage, and bad sex can undermine a marriage, IMO. Plus, it helps you figure out if what you are feeling is true love or just plain lust.

I personally believe that the push to make teens abstain until marriage may actually be contributing to the high divorce rate. If people think that they have to be married to have sex, I think they might rush into a marriage because they might not know the difference between lust and love. Take my former roommate, for example. She and her boyfriend dated for 4 years before they got married. To my knowledge, they were both virgins when they married. They separated within 6 months of marrying and were officially divorced the day before their first anniversary. I really believe that the disgrace in having sex before marriage and living together (he was Mormon) contributed to the failure of their marriage. I think that if they had been allowed to see what each other was truly like, apart from dates, they wouldn't have gotten married.

IMO "sex" and "marriage" are not concepts that are necessarily linked at all. Marriage is MUCH MORE than sex, and it's completely possible to have a wonderful marriage that has little or no sex.

Conversely, it's more than possible to have a wonderful sexual relationship that never leads to marriage, or for a couple to be bound in a multitude of ways--emotional, sexual, financial, parental--without any need for a marriage license if they don't feel it's right for them. Pushing teens to "abstain until marriage" does nothing to ensure ... whatever it's trying to ensure. And yes, I totally agree it could lead to more early divorces.

In my experience, I'm very glad we had lots of sex BEFORE marriage because there hasnt been quite so much of it since, lol.

I was lucky, though, I met my DH when I was 16 and even then, we did wait a few years before doing the deed.

For my own kids, I'd be happy to see them sexually active (not literally) as long as it was in the bounds of a relationship - not necessarily a forever relationship but as part of a loving relationship that has some significance in their lives. I'm not really looking forward to the issue of casual sex if it arises. I'm also planning on being a parent who allows boyfriends and girlfriends to stay overnight in my house. My parents were great parents and very realistic ones, but they did have a "not under my roof" policy and it really forced me out of home and into marriage at a young age - not that young, I was 23, but most of my friends lived at home till 25 or older and had way more money to buy their first houses than I did.

I'd rather see my children spend the night with a partner in their own bedroom and live at home that bit longer and see them set up well financially to being their adult lives.

That's if they want to stay home that long of course!

I agree with you, Jachut. I've never understood that "not under MY roof" mentality. To me that sets up a clear signal to the child that behavior outside the home is somehow different than behavior inside the home. I'd like my girls to be fully aware that their behavior has consequences and be fully accountable for their choices, and that goes for behavior inside and outside my home.

(On the wedding night...)

Oh honey, you were the BEST! Compared to... myself...?

I lost my virginty long before I lost my bachelorette...ednesshoodity. I never even questioned whether or not I would wait until marriage to have sex. But I was never irresponsible about it. When I knew it was something I wanted to do, I talked to my mom about it and she helped me do what I needed to do. There's so much out there to learn, and enjoy. I have no regrets about not waiting. I think having sexual relationships with people gives you a type of relationship maturity you won't get any other way. Part of that is the ability to distinguish love from lust.

I think pushing kids to wait until marriage for sex is going to... not a lot, other than give us a whole lot of people wanting to get married really early. Which is going to give us higher divorce ratings.

I was a virgin when I married, but a very young bride, as well (17). I've been lucky in love.....and extremely unlucky, at the same time.

I've been married 3 times (widowed twice) and had exactly 3 sexual partners. After the first husband died, I was too afraid to date "strange men". I had never gone out with a truly "grown up" man and I was pretty sure they would want to have sex, something I wasn't prepared to deal with at one year post-widowhood. So I married a man I had known since I was 8 years old. It was a very comfortable arrangement, and a very long and happy marriage.

By the time husband number 2 died, I was 50 years old and overweight. I didn't like anything about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing, starting with the name. Who says "my boyfriend" in the same breath as "got to get my colonoscopy"? I had several first dates - I was the queen of first dates. But I met Bob. Bob was great (still is). He worked third shift. The problem was, Bob wanted me to see him off from his house when he went to work (not a problem) AND be there when he came home the next morning (BIG problem). I was somebody's grandmother, for heaven's sake. "I can't live with you," I said. And I meant it. It was just not something I had ever done and I wasn't willing to go all liberated in my dotage. No hard feelings. So we got married. And although I'm generally fine with other people living together, and even raising families without benefit of matrimony, it's outside my own personal comfort level. And my church is so dang picky about that, too. And I like going to church, so.....what can I say? Life is full of choices. Start early and practice making good ones.

I've never understood that "not under MY roof" mentality.

I had this exact conversation with my parents & DH last night during dinner. My parents raised me liberally, and under that ideology - if I wanted to taste their alcohol I could taste it, but I was told "only at home". If I had a question about sex they would answer it, as long as it wasn't an inappropriate question (which - eww - I never wanted to know from either of my parents anyway). They never came out and told me, "If you want to have sex, we'd rather you do it here" but it was their preference. They DID make it clear that they would rather I do that, then be out in a field somewhere, or in a car somewhere, and made it VERY clear that they'd prefer I come talk to them and get the protection I needed, than be a teenage parent.

And my parents found that by removing the "mystery" about these things, it worked, and it became no big deal. And because I was "allowed" to do it, it was never something I did to rebel, or for attention. And I was very resposnible about them. And I think their psychology worked. I've never been drunk in my life, and aside from an incidental whippit incident, I've never done drugs in my life, even though I was around it and had all the opportunity in the world.

re: "aside from an incidental whippit incident,".....

am I the only one who has no clue what THIS means????

Gee....and I thought I was old. A whippit is a single dose ("huff") canister of nitrous oxide - the same stuff that is used as a propellant in whipping cream and at the dentist's office.

Gee....and I thought I was old. A whippit is a single dose ("huff") canister of nitrous oxide - the same stuff that is used as a propellant in whipping cream and at the dentist's office.

I'm glad you explained, Carlene, because I also had no idea what that was!

Glad you clarified that....because I thought I knew what it meant....man, was I waaay off!! LOL!! The only whippet in my vocabulary is a greyhound dog!! Sorry, Wheetsin....didn't mean to put you in the beastiality category!!

Here's my two cents on the issue: I lost my virginity only a few weeks ago to a man that I thought loved me and I loved him. We were planning on getting married. Yes, we are both Mormons and don't believe in sex before marriage. I was ADAMANT that I wouldn't have sex before marriage because it's part of my belief system... but the fact that we did it before marriage ruined everything. He didn't respect me and I didn't respect him after we did it. It killed the relationship. IF we had waited until after marriage, things would have been different. And IF we had chosen to break up, without doing the dirty deed, I'd not be feeling nearly as much heartache and longing for him as I do now. In my opinion, waiting til marriage just makes it a much more special event.

I'm going to be blunt, and I don't want you to take offense at this because it isn't meant to be offensive. If your relationship breaks up because you have sex, you didn't have a good relationship. An ass is an ass, so if your boyfriend was an ass now, he would have been an ass after you married him. I personally think you should probably thank your lucky stars that you didn't marry him.

Leatha, thank you so much. It has been the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. Thanks for your encouraging words.

Here's my two cents on the issue: I lost my virginity only a few weeks ago to a man that I thought loved me and I loved him. We were planning on getting married. Yes, we are both Mormons and don't believe in sex before marriage. I was ADAMANT that I wouldn't have sex before marriage because it's part of my belief system... but the fact that we did it before marriage ruined everything. He didn't respect me and I didn't respect him after we did it. It killed the relationship. IF we had waited until after marriage, things would have been different. And IF we had chosen to break up, without doing the dirty deed, I'd not be feeling nearly as much heartache and longing for him as I do now. In my opinion, waiting til marriage just makes it a much more special event.

Puddin...

Virginity and virtue are not the same thing. You may have lost the one, but as long as you live a virtuous life, you will still have the other. And the man who is someday lucky enough to marry you will not care about one youthful mistake. This was just one of those frogs you have to kiss on the way to finding your prince.

I dunno... there is just something about the idea of the headboard banging on the other side of my mother's wall.

You and me both, Leatha. The first time I spent the night in my mother's house as a married woman - in my virginal baby blue bedroom, no less - my husband wanted to have sex and I recoiled as if he had suggested we copulate on the courthouse lawn at high noon.

Flash forward about 12 years....same scenario (same childhood home), different husband. My bed - the bed we were sleeping in - had a bookcase headboard. And little sliding doors....with brass, kind of horseshoe-shaped doo-dads that served as handles to open and close the doors. I had slept in that bed for YEARS without realizing that any significant amount of movement would cause those little brass doo-dads to bang sharply against the headboard. My husband was not one to give up easily. He somehow managed to hold both doo-dads still for....well, however long it took. Any time after that, whenever we spent the night at my mom's, it was either no sex or figure out some way to shut those damn doo-dads up. We tried tying washcloths around them, sticking them in place with masking tape - we even took them completely off once and put them back on the next morning. But we forgot and left the pliers in the bedroom, which led to an uncomfortable question and answer session with my mother.

Years later, after my mother died, we were moving that same bed from her house to my guest room. As we carried the headboard upstairs, my husband mumbled, "I hate this bed."

"What's wrong with it?" asked one of the two sons helping us. I laughed so hard, I almost fell down the stairs.

I thought a whippet was a dog. I'm really over the hill, but I have to say that even though I have not been married in my nearly 60 years, I didn't miss out. So I think that sex before, within, and after marriage is good. Or I did think that. After heart surgery and menopause, I think sex takes too much energy. I'd rather take a nap.